Plenty of Dude talk lately combined with today being President’s Day inspired an idle YouTube search this morning. So with that:
Tag: The Contender
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INTERVIEW: Jeff Bridges
For actor Jeff Bridges, whose career has already spanned five decades, Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart” was something of a homecoming and, the actor says, “a dream come true.”Bridges stars in the film as Bad Blake, a ramblin’ country-western singer who travels the Southwest playing dive after dive, cut from the same cloth as Hank Williams Jr., maybe, or Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, etc. A guitarist in his own right, Bridges was eager to take on a film so concerned with music, but was wary of underwhelming after the example set by another music-themed film from his past, Steve Kloves’s “The Fabulous Baker Boys” from 1989.
“What they did with that movie I thought was so wonderful that to do another music movie and not match that, it’s a pretty high bar there, so I was concerned about that,” Bridges says over lunch in Beverly Hills one November afternoon. “There were several music scripts that came down the pike, and sometimes it would have lyrics or little samples and it wouldn’t be right. And this one had no music. Then I thought maybe I could write the music, or my friend, but then, you know, I was busy, so I didn’t focus on it.”
Indeed, Bridges is quick to admit that he spends a great deal of his energy steering clear of new projects. It might be a phobia of commitment on one hand, but on the other, he’s a man who likes to keep his options open. Signing onto a new film means missing the chance to work on any number of other projects that might ultimately interest him more.
But “Crazy Heart” was a different story, especially once his good friend T Bone Burnett got involved as producer, music consultant and composer.
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The Dude abides
Snapped Tuesday afternoon over lunch at the Four Seasons. Interview to come, maybe next week/over the holiday. Fascinating discussion on “The Contender,” “Starman,” “Heaven’s Gate,” etc., including, of course, plenty of talk about “Crazy Heart.” Stay tuned.
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Fox Searchlight looks to salvage season with potential 2009 release for ‘Crazy Heart’
Just when you thought last year’s Best Picture victor was down for the count, Fox Searchlight goes and shakes things up in November. First, some background…When we kicked off our coverage of the 2009-2010 Oscar season a year in advance, one of the more anticipated titles was Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” based on the novel by Thomas Cobb about an alcoholic country music singer on the road to redemption. The film stars Jeff Bridges in the leading role, along with Colin Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall.
In July, Searchlight picked the film up, touting Bridges’s “performance of a lifetime,” but the studio slated the release for the spring of 2010. It seemed a shame at the time given the fact that the film was shaping up to be a potential awards vehicle for Bridges at the very least, perhaps more. But with “Amelia” on the way, a (so we thought) potentially major player in the race with its typical AMPAS tropes. But that ship has sailed, leaving the studio with only the animated “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Marc Webb’s summer entry “(500) Days of Summer” to hawk for awards consideration.
Until now. Maybe.
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Jeff Bridges: due for Oscar
Yesterday Guy kick-started the Best Actor conversation on “Crazy Heart” star Jeff Bridges. The film, recently acquired by Fox Searchlight, is currently scheduled for a Spring 2010 release but seems to be all but begging for an autumn awards run given the buzz circling Bridges’s performance. I imagine similar discussions are happening at Searchlight, and without any real muscle in the lead actor race so far (I’m not sure Joseph Gordon-Levitt can survive the year), it would make some sense to jerk it into a qualifying release pattern.Bridges, of course, is well overdue for some Oscar glory. He’s cranked out worthy performance after worthy performance, going all the way back to his first nomination for “The LAst Picture Show” and his first leading bid in “Starman.” His work in Rod Lurie’s “The Contender” (another nomination) still stands as my favorite presidential depiction on film yet. Nathaniel Roges over at The Film Experience is thinking along the same lines today, but offers sound reasoning for the actor’s consistently bleak Oscar track record.